1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of and an apparatus for assembling a vehicle body suitable for use on its assembly line.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the past, a vehicle body assembly has been performed in a way to locate a plurality of workpieces, i.e., panels, by means of gauge portions fixed in a plurality of positions on a predetermined stage of an assembly line; temporarily join the located panels each other by a spot welding to assemble a vehicle body main part which greatly concerns the assembly precision of the vehicle body; and carry out a further spot welding as well as a joining of other panels. Additionally, the following process had to be repeated to obtain a predetermined assembly precision of the vehicle body: Measure the assembly precision of the assembled vehicle body manually perform a positional regulation by displacing, cutting and/or padding of each of the gauge portions and resume the vehicle body assembly. However, the manual positional regulation of the gauge portions takes a lot of time. Thus, there has been proposed, in Tokkaisho No. 59-144595, a locator having the gauge portions with drive mechanism by which the positional regulation thereof can be automatically carried out.
The above-mentioned locator includes a plurality of drive mechanisms for displacing each of the gauge portions in small increments. However, the plurality of gauges make it difficult to assure sufficient a space for welding arrangements such as a welding robot and a multispot welders used for joining the panels to the vehicle body main part, which can result in an insufficient number of welding points. On the other hand, if the number of welding points is increased, the number of gauge portions has to be decreased.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for assembling a vehicle body which allows an effective joining of the panels.